Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm not and never have been suicidal, and at the moment I'm worth way more to my family alive.

I went through my first depressive almost three decades ago and have been cycling ever since, yet I haven't been able to maintain a durable memory of the pain of depression. It's part of the fun that I somehow forget again and again just how much it hurts, just in time to be knocked over by a wave of pain without reason. The pain is amazing and it doesn't go away.

I'm abandoning my usual DHS-derivative Sesame Street muppet condition chart for the slightly more nuanced yet even more ridiculous LESBIS (Lefty's Bipolar Intensity Scale, obviously), on which 10 is full-blown, force majeure, call-911 mania and 1 is depression unto oblivion, and I'm blowing a low 3. Somebody make it stop.